New 52 – Batwoman #9 review

Non linear stories can be amazing if they are handled properly but that’s not the case here. I think that this story could have worked and it could have even worked in a non-linear way, but Williams and Blackman failed at telling it in an effective way. You can’t devote only 1-2 pages of story in a different place and time with different characters and expect people to keep up and care about what is happening especially when we have a month in between printings to forget what happened in the previous chapter. As I’ve said countless times in my previous reviews, this will likely turn out well when it’s collected as a trade paperback, but as a monthly title it isn’t worth my money right now. I’ve never really enjoyed the Batwoman story. It’s not my thing! Much like how I never got into Doctor Who or Star Trek, I can’t get into Batwoman for the life of me! Who am I to judge something that I’ve never really found myself capable of enjoying as much as its truest fans?

When reading “Batwoman” I always looked forward to the quieter, private moments between the characters when they weren’t fighting crime…er…monsters and ghosts. Kate Kane’s personal life is vastly more interesting to me than the cults and phantasms and mutated monsters that Batwoman faces in her indestructible armor. If the book was just about Kate Kane, a non-superhero trying to survive and date in Gotham City, I would buy it. But it isn’t and I see the Batwoman adventures a distraction.

The art was what made the book a must-buy for a lot of people but now Williams isn’t doing the art. It’s still a well drawn book, now handled by Trevor McCarthy quite effectively, but it isn’t the mind-blowing visual presentation that I saw in the first arc. That stuff was worth the price of admission on its own and so it was easy to overlook the weak writing. Now that the same weak writing about things I have no interest in is being handled in such a cluttered fashion with this weak attempt at a non-linear narrative AND Williams isn’t doing the art I have lost all interest in this book.

I find myself incapable of giving it a decent score. So I won’t score it. It’s unfair for me to grade something that I never really loved. I realize that my reviews are of no help whatsoever to longtime Batwoman fans right now because this arc just isn’t for me. It’s not to my taste. Nobody wants to listen to a lactose intolerant food critic tell them that cheesecake is terrible.

So instead I’ll recommend that you look for Batwoman reviews elsewhere for the time being. Until I can flip through an issue of “Batwoman” and really enjoy it, I won’t waste your time!